I will first describe my experience with Eckhart Tolle and then I will ask some questions I need answers to.

Let me start from the beginning. I started to read Power of Now like 3? 4? Years ago. I just thought that "the guy who wrote it ate to much mushrooms" to begin with and I stoped reading at page 30 or something. But still... I gave it a second shot. And a third. And a fourth. I couldn't really understand the concept of watching my thoughts and all my tries with POW ended up with me not getting past page 70 or something.

After the fourth time, I attended a Vipassana Meditation 10-day retreat. For 10 days I meditated and "observed the truth of what's happening". I noticed that the teachings of Vipassana are pretty much the same as Tolle.
I came home, had a 1-2 months break and started to meditate every evening and some mornings (when I got up from bed haha) and decided to give Power of Now a last chance.

And boom.

I started to watch my thoughts. I think the difference I did now was that I was watcinhg ALL thoughts, not only the ones I thought as "thoughts that have bad influence on me". And I consciously "finished" them when I watched them, since my experience was that the thinking "stoped" when I watched my thoughts, instead of really watching them (as Tolle writes in POW, "watch all the records that have been playing for years", while I experienced it that the records stoped when I watched them, so as just wrote, I started to "finish" them).

I started to see a change in the perception of my reality - It is really difficult to explain, but everything looked different form time to time, even though it looked the same. Explaining this would be like explaining to a colourblind person how a certain colour look - it is impossible to do with words. I could also describe it as a feeling of "waking up" since I was in total precense, I didn't have any thought of that I've been here all the time.
And I started to realize everything. Every limitation I've ever set up for for my self, every "I cannot do this, this is to hard, this is X, this is Y" was just the voice in my head. I started to feel excited, because I realized that this is The Power of Now.

Anyways, I continued to meditate, watch my feelings, my thoughts and feel my inner body.
And one day, something happened. I got of the subway on my way home from work. As always during that period, I was reading POW during the 20 minutes long trip. When I closed the book, the lights became brighter, the colours became clearer, the sound I heard sounded different, it felt like exactly all my senses, my sight, my hearings, my touching (don't know what it is called in english), became 2000% stronger. My vision had more depth, it was like seeing everything in 3D - and even though my reaction was "OMFG, WTF IS GOING ON?" I felt joy, I felt love, I felt peace and I also felt that this was a natural step of what has already started to happen within me.
I got home and even though I knew that I've been here before, it felt like this was the first time I REALLY saw it. I was amazed and just looked around in my apartment, looked at my hands, looked out of the window- Everything was just pulsing with life, everything was wonderful. And then I remembered, this is what Eckhart Tolle is describing in the beginning of Power of Now when he went through his transformation, this is NOW, this is Zen, THIS IS LIFE.

This state holded itself for 3-4 days in a row. I woke up full of energy, I did the "boring" stuff at work without hesitation and most of the thoughts in my mind was thoughts I choose to think. It was just pure love, pure energy, pure peace.
Though, everyday after several hours, I started to feel dizzy, bad thoughts came in to my mind, I started to think thoughts like "so what that I feel good right now, this doesn't change how my situation is bla bla bla". But, since I had a lot of "presence reminders" from Power of now, I stayed conscious and watched the bad feeling.
One of the days I rememberd that a friend that recommended me The Power of Now a long time ago, with the words "This my friend, this is the key to everything. If you master this, there won't be any limitations for you". I called him and started to talk about my perception of reality right now... And when we started to talk, when I consciously started to talk about how I feel and what is happening with me at this precise moment...

The feeling got so intense. My senses went from 2000% to 10000%. It was as if I felt the energy and the oneness of everything in the universe inside of me. I went in to another room (I was at work while this happened), because I needed to sit down since the feeling was so extremely intense, and I didn't know if I gave the expression of being completely normal or if people would think that I am high or something. For some seconds, I thought I would pass out.
I told my friend about my change of the perception of world, and he started to laugh (not at me, with me ). One of the things I remember him saying "This is the start of your journey, and one day you will come to the insight that there is no reality, and then you will be able to do exactly what you want in life".

After the 3-4 days the experience started to go down. Everything went back to "normal", in the visual means, but I started to see the world differently. I started to see why there is so much hate, so much wars, so much killing in the world, I started to have a bigger understanding for criminals, for people that I don't share opinions with, for people that I "hate". With other words, I started to see the madness of the ego in the world.

Now 4 months later (this happened around august this year), my life has transformed. I don't label things as good or bad anymore, it's just situations that needs to be handeled or left alone. I am not angry at people almost causing a car crash with me, I am not angry at my father. Of course some things that have strong emotional attachments can upset me and make me do things that I am not proud of - but still, I am much more aware of that.

As for the "cool" perception of reality, I noticed that while feeling my inner body or watching my thoughts I could bring it back, but it was never that strong again.
Afterwards, I at once read "A New Earth" aswell.

Now, to my questions.

1. In the beginning I wrote that I realized that every limitation I puted up for myself was just the voice in my head. Still, there are things that I cannot motivate myself to do. I am sitting at my work and I know that I will get a new brand computer if I reach my commission goal. And this is not something I just "want" for my ego, I actually need it. And yes, I know this is a label and a thought as well - but without the basic needs we cannot function in life. I barely can motivate myself to do anything at work, even though I know this can have great benefit for my familys situation. I am also completely aware of that this can have to do with the emotional relatshionship with my boss, that is a really old friend of mine, whom I through self observation can honesly tell you that I've been jelous of for a big time of my life (approx 10 years) for always having more money, more women and more succses. But still, I am trying to keep aware of all that and even though nothing of this really affects my "How are you today Avager?", it seems to block me. Or to be honest, I don't know if it really is it or if it is my ego that makes something up for me being a poor salesman.

2. Sometimes, I can do really good salescalls, when I am completely present in the now. Though, this is something that comes randomly, since I experience that the voice "you are a bad salesman, your boss has more money and is better than you" takes over me for quite too much, and this makes me to not give the results that I know that I am capable of. Or maybe when I really focus on the inner body/now. I don't know, I feel like I am overthinking this.

3. The enhanced vision with with my senses going stronger became kind of a "drug" for me for some time. I really tried to summon it often for a long time, and I don't know, but I kind of feel like I've... "runned out of gas of the Power of Now"..? Is it possible that I missused it so much that it has "lost it's power?"
Since I often tend to nowadays get the feeling "is it there? Is the power there?" and I find it a bit more difficult to get that "just respond on what happens with full Power of Now" state. And yes, I am aware that making it to a state that a thought can comprehend is a paradox.

4. I still can feel anxious about the future sometimes, even though I logically know that everything will be alright.

5. Everytime I've spoken with someone about this, which has meant bringing presence into the "problem", I always feel that it feels better. I can seriously say that this is the case now - while writing this post, I stoped for some minutes, looked around in the room and felt presence. Just peace and the feeling that there is nothing else than here and now. And it might just aswell be, that this post was the thing I needed to do for the universe to lead me into the next step. For that, I thank you all.

6. And even though point 5 is written, I still can feel a bit of point 4.

7. I still have the craving for that there is "something more" to find out, a feeling that I am not done with exploring the spiritual. But it seems like a pretty normal thing (I googled signs of spiritual awakening and it seems like I am not the only one) to have a desire to explore the spiritual. I guess I should just be aware of that desire, since otherwise it can create a "only ONE book more and I will be enlighted"-feeling.

Last question, 8:
My mother has an injury that she is basically panicing about pretty often, because of the fear that the pain will last for her whole life - I tried to give her the Power of Now, but she has the same problem (or, apparently, of what she tells me) as I had. She labels thoughts as "thoughts worth of observing", she says that "she doesn't have time to watch the thoughts all the time", etc etc. I want to help her and "speed it up a bit" and try to talk to her the best way I can, but I don't really know if I should give it time, since I know that everything will come when the time is right. I just want to spare her the pain.

I don't have answers to your questions, but I enjoyed reading your account. I recognize some similarities in my life, although I don't have the intensity of experience you do. I appreciate the time it took to write this and hope that helped you process and integrate what happened to you.....as often happens when we put our stories out there.

Last edited by Onceler on Wed Dec 07, 2016 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think that you had some great experiences, but unfortunately they don't last. So, if one is lead to do Self inquiry, because of the experience and can assimilate the greater meaning and apprehend one's true nature through them, then they are useful, if not, then their just another "object" of pleasure to chase after.

Enlightenment or Self realization can't be found in an experience, unless the knowledge gained from the experience is assimilated/integrated within the intellect of the apparent person. This allows one to discriminate "Self" from "not self", satya from mithya.